


Chain of Command

by Haineko



Category: The Losers (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Gen, Pre-Movie, Teen Warning as a precaution, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-19
Updated: 2019-03-19
Packaged: 2019-11-25 21:25:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18171653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haineko/pseuds/Haineko
Summary: Be careful what you wish for... or in this case ask for.Jensen makes a selfish request of Cougar and things don't turn out quite the way he imagined it. Not that he's complaining.Actually it's probably among the best things that ever happened to Jensen. And to think that it all started because of two words."Command me."





	Chain of Command

**Author's Note:**

> This was brought to you by the Sunday Surpriseattack Plotbunny, who smashed through my creative low in a surprising show of strenght. No seriously I'm in my last year of higher education and working at my thesis which pretty much saps me of all and any coherent creative displays - the reason why there hasn't been an update on Yckmtl, which I feel really bad about...
> 
> Anyways as always I own nothing and nothing has been beta read, so if you find any mistakes feel free to point them out to me so that I may correct them.
> 
>  
> 
> "blah" - speech  
> *blah* - thoughts
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

## Chain of Command

“Command me.” 

His words earned him a disbelieving look and a raised brow. Which was fair considering that he would never be caught dead saying something like this seriously under normal circumstances. 

However these weren’t normal circumstances so… 

“Don’t look at me like that Sergeant Alvarez. I know words aren’t really your shtick, but they’re mine and we’re miles up shit-creek, so just indulge me and verbalize. It won’t kill you – I promise. If you have to, think about it as an added incentive for me to get this done. 

“So how about it, Cougs?” 

Unsurprisingly Cougar just looked at him for a long moment, obviously trying to discern if that was truly all there was to his demand or if there was something more going on. 

And truthfully there was, because Jensen did have another, entirely selfish at that, reason for his words but he was also absolutely certain that the sniper would be unable to figure it out – simply because he lacked the knowledge necessary for it and Jensen sure as hell wasn’t going to share. 

This certainty allowed him to meet those piercing brown eyes head on with his on unwavering gaze, making it clear that yes, he really wanted a verbal response. 

In the end Cougar, who was rather bad at refusing the blond at the best of times, was the one to give in with a nod. 

Having received his desired outcome, Jensen wasn’t put off by the continued silence. He was after all well aware that his friend had a hard time with words and was as such willing to wait for Cougar to figure out what exactly he wanted to say before he actually said it. 

Apart from that was the fact that he wanted a Command and not some flimsy, non-consequential order. And since the foundations of any proper Command were forethought and intention… well. Cougar was pretty much the perfect choice to get one without needing to explain _things_. 

Was Jensen taking advantage of his friend’s nature? Maybe a little bit. 

Did he feel guilty about it? No, not at all since Cougar wouldn’t be the one who had to bear the consequences of it – those were Jensen’s to shoulder. As it should be, since he was the one who had asked for it. 

Speaking of, he could feel the energy of the Command build up around Cougar, signaling that he was nearly finished with laying the foundations. Now all that was left was to give it form and send it off by voicing it so that it could be heard and received. 

Knowing that he was only moments away from getting his wish, Jensen, fueled by anticipation and curiosity leaned in slightly. 

“We do everything we need to free the others and meet back up again,” were the words that fell from Cougar’s lips like salvation and also consequentially launched the Chain of Command at Jensen, who accepted it willingly and gladly. 

It was only once it was burrowed into his being that the weight of the Command, of the intentions behind it, hit him. And while that was normal, Jensen was honestly surprised just by how heavy it was, causing him to falter in his breathing. 

The only thing that stopped him from freezing up too, that made him act despite of it, was the knowledge of the sniper’s eyes on him, because making Cougar feel concerned when he had just granted such a gift to the hacker was simply _wrong_. 

Reaching out he pulled his friend into a tight hug and murmured a heartfelt ‘thank you’ into the junction of Cougar’s neck and shoulder. If the move also made sure that he had a few seconds where his face couldn’t be seen? Well that was just a much needed bonus. 

Needed because Cougar certainly wouldn’t be able to understand the sheer _awe_ Jensen was beginning to feel, the longer he had to examine the Chain. Even if it was only cursory, because he would need a lot of time, that he unfortunately didn’t have, to catalogue everything about it – a part of him was already mourning the inevitable loss of it, but he pushed it aside for now to focus on the fact that he still had it for at least the next half hour – or at least he tried to. It was just really hard. 

After all, while Jensen didn’t make a habit out of accepting Commands there had been quite a few in the past – mostly during his experimental phase – so he felt secure enough in his assessment that there was only one other Command that could compare to Cougar’s when it came to the weight of the intentions behind it. 

The one that currently lay dormant next to Cougar’s active one. Jessica’s. 

The Command he shouldered for his sister in all but blood concerning the care of her daughter should anything disastrous ever happen to her and it was required from him. The one which carried the weight of a mother’s love. 

It made him really curious about what exactly his friend had put behind his words to be able to match that particular Chain… 

*Not the time,* he reminded himself. As much as he would have loved to examine it in all its glory, there were important things to be done and he’d already been selfish once today. 

Therefore he gave Cougar one last squeeze before loosening the embrace and stepping back. 

“Thank you,” he reiterated. “That meant a lot and was totally awesome. 

“Now I’m truly all set to go and rescue Clay and Roque. 

“So what do you say my feline friend, shall we go and wreak some well-deserved havoc?” 

Cougar inclined his head in agreement and set out in his appointed direction. 

Jensen took one last deep breath before turning and doing the same – the Chain connecting them a reassuring weight considering the absence of their comms. 

It hadn’t even been five minutes since he accepted it but one thing was already crystal clear – he would miss it acutely once the mission was over and he would lose it because the Command had been fulfilled. 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Forethought and intention as a foundation. 

Words to give it form and to send it off. 

Those were the components necessary to build a Command and start a Chain – all in all pretty easy actually. The actual hard part was finding someone who could either take hold of the Chain or whom you could forcefully attach the Chain to in order to complete the connection. 

But that wasn’t the point right now. 

The point was that while one needed three simple things – so simple that literally everyone could do it – to create a Command, those three things didn’t factor in equally. 

In truth the ration was more like 20% forethought, 70% intention and a measly 10% for the actual words. Considering the fact that words could change their meaning depending on context and intention that made sense. 

As a matter of fact, Jensen always had to bite back a snicker when he got reprimanded for ‘not respecting the chain of command’, but that was a totally different subject. 

Going back to the ratio between intention and words, the obvious consequence of it was that while a Command could sound like one thing the actual Chain could end up being quite different. It was therefore important to make sure that they fit together – especially where long-term Commands were concerned. 

Before Jensen had accepted Jess’ Chain to care for her daughter they'd had many discussions about the limitations they wanted to implement, word choice and their matching intentions in order to get a functional Command that would allow the influence of outside factors – after all a 10-year-old required a different kind of care than a 17-year-old or a 25-year-old. 

So yes, communication was important to make sure both parties were on the same page, at least when it came to consensual connections. 

A guideline Jensen had willfully ignored when he had asked Cougar for a Command and as such he really had only himself to blame for the situation he now found himself in. 

Not that he was complaining about the outcome, even if it was a little inconvenient from time to time, but he definitively didn’t plan on telling Jess about it any time soon, or ever, because then he would never hear the end of it. 

The outcome being, that while Jensen had intended for the Command to only last for the duration of the rescue mission, that didn’t mesh with the intentions Cougar had put behind his words. And since Cougar’s intentions were the only ones that mattered in the creation of the Command, the Chain that connected them was still very much in existence and showed no signs of disappearing. 

Maybe Jensen should have considered the fact that Cougar really wasn’t someone who subscribed to temporariness before leaping in with both feet at once? 

Although to be fair the Chain had grown a little lighter after the ‘free the others’-part had been fulfilled, so there had been a set limit to at least part of the Command. 

If truth be told it was actually kind of flattering how so much of the Chain’s weight stemmed from the fact that the sniper wanted to at least be aware where Jensen was and at best wanted to have him within his sight, because it was tangible proof that his friend honestly cared for him. 

It wasn’t as if Jensen usually doubted their friendship or the certain knowledge that Cougar wasn’t the kind of person who just put up with things or people he didn’t like if he didn’t have to, but to have a concrete measure of precisely how much Cougar cared for him and wanted to have him around… well that was definitively something else. 

Something he treasured beyond what words could express, particularly when he had a bad day and the little mean voice in the back of his head was trying to convince him that the others, and Cougar especially, only put up with him because he usually got the job done and hadn’t been driven off by their own brand of crazy yet. On those days he cherished every tug on the Chain and metaphorically shoved it in the mean voice’s face to prove it wrong and make it shut up. It even worked most of the time. 

On other days and mainly in the beginning he found Cougar’s habit to tug on the Chain whenever he felt like it to be both highly annoying and slightly insulting. He knew he was being more than a little unfair, because as stated previously this whole situation was his own damn fault and it wasn’t like Cougar knew what he was doing or even aware of the fact that he was capable of doing it in the first instance. 

And to be perfectly honest it wasn’t even ‘whenever’. Some experimenting on Jensen’s part had revealed that the occurrences could be roughly divided into three categories: 

 

1) Cougar didn’t know where Jensen was. 

2) Cougar knew approximately where Jensen was or at least where he was supposed to be but couldn’t actually see him. 

3) Cougar knew precisely where Jensen was but wasn’t satisfied with the circumstances. 

 

Out of those options it was the second one that annoyed him the most, because even though he was fairly sure that he was wrong about the motive, from time to time he couldn’t help but to interpret it as a sign of lacking faith in his abilities. 

If Jensen was out and about doing some errand without knowing how long it would take him? Tug. 

If Jensen had given a time for his return but was slightly late? Tug. 

If they were on a mission and Jensen was out of Cougar’s line of sight for longer than the sniper deemed appropriate while simultaneously maintaining radio silence? Tug, tug, tug. 

Jensen was, as a matter of fact, kind of proud of himself that he hadn’t said anything like ‘stop tugging’ yet with how often the words were on the tip of his tongue. 

However for the most part he had made his peace with it, because it had not only allowed him to gain new insights into the workings of his friend’s mind but also insured that he always knew when said, very silent, friend needed him and on top of that also granted him a surefire way to find the sneaky bastard whenever he felt like it. 

So what if it had sort of forced him to develop new habits like announcing where he was going and for how long he would approximately be gone? Or that he had taken to spam Cougar’s cell phone with texts while he was gone and slipped in an updated time of arrival now and then when necessary? Or that he had taken up Cougar’s own custom of tapping his mic on occasion even if he stuck to his own patterns? 

It seemed like a fair trade for the knowledge that while Cougar might routinely hang out next to windows – because he can’t settle down well if he can’t check out the sightlines every so often – and seems to be deeply involved with whatever he is doing when Jensen steps through the door, it didn’t mean he hadn’t been keeping an eye on the street until the blond had turned up in his field of vision. 

Or that even though sometimes, when they are in the some sort of proximity to each other and nothing important is going on, Cougar wants Jensen closer but doesn’t always search him out, especially if the hacker is busy with his computers. 

Or that once in a blue moon Cougar’s nightmares get so bad that all he wants is to be held and even though he never makes a move or sound to alert Jensen to the situation, the insistent tugging on the Chain is enough to wake him up so that he can tumble out of his bed, stumble towards Cougar’s, climb over his friend – because it wouldn’t do to hem him in between Jensen and the wall – wrap him in his arms and start babbling about something until the tension drains out of Cougar and he falls asleep once again and even more importantly stays asleep until morning. 

All in all it may have been an impulsive decision on Jensen’s part to demand a Command from Cougar and although it certainly didn’t turn out the way he had expected things to go, he certainly didn’t regret it. 

In a way it was even one of the best things that ever happened to him, because the weight of the Chain was a source of constant comfort and reassurance he would otherwise lack. 

And if he occasionally took advantage of it in order to creep the others out? Well that was just an added bonus. 

#### End

**Author's Note:**

> And that's all she wrote!! Still took me more than two days but at least it's done.
> 
> This is literally all I have concerning this Plotbunny, so while you may of course ask questions I can't guarantee any answers.
> 
> Bye^^;;;


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